In order to impact a protective coating and/or to improve the appearance of many surfaces, it has been customary in the past to apply a wax coating. These coatings are by no means permanent and, where exposed to elements such as weather, salt, human traffic, etc., the wax surface gradually becomes flawed or disappears entirely. Prior to applying a new wax coating, it has been found desirable to remove the weathered or worn wax with a solvent or solvent composition. Many of the solvents which are available for this prupose have a tendency to deleteriously affect the substrate, particularly where the substrate is a painted or other organic chemical material, as for example the surface of an automobile. To overcome these problems, the prior art has developed various emulsion compositions which are based primarily upon the use of petroleum derived hydrocarbons, e.g., kerosene, petroleum distillates, e.g., n-hexane, etc. While these materials are quite effective to remove wax from a surface, they are environmentally undesirable, principally because of the prolonged BOD, e.g., up to 40 days in duration.
I have now found that a highly effective cleaning composition especially suited for removal of wax or wax-like materials from surfaces can be prepared using a natural material, e.g., a terpene hydrocarbon material, such as citrus limonene, alpha-pinene beta-pinene, or delta-3-carene. This material together with a suitable dispersing agent described below is dispersed in an aqueous medium in the form of a water-in-oil emulsion. In this form, the oil phase comes immediately into contact with the wax or other organic substance to be removed, and because of the high solvency power of the terpene hydrocarbons is able very quickly to dissolve the old surface coating including oils, fats, waxes and greases. Because the emulsion is a water-in-oil emulsion and has suitable rheological properties when on the surface even though vertically disposed, and does not "run". After a suitable contact time, additional water can be added to the surface, usually in the form of a spray which causes an inversion of the emulsion to an oil-in-water emulsion whereby the cleaning compositions is readily removed from the surface.